1. Field
An air conditioner and a method for controlling an air conditioner are disclosed herein.
2. Background
An air conditioner is an apparatus that cools, warms, or purifies indoor air to provide a more comfortable indoor environment for a user. An air conditioner may be classified as an electric heat pump (EHP) type, which uses electric power or a gas heat pump (GHP) type, which uses a gas fuel, such as liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to a power source for driving a compressor. In a GHP type, an engine is operated by burning a gas fuel, and thus, a compressor is driven.
A conventional EHP type air conditioner is disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 10-2003-0077857, which is hereby incorporated by reference. In the conventional EHP type air conditioner, as the compressor may be easily controlled by adjusting a supply current, it is possible to respond to a partial load, and thus, the conventional EHP type air conditioner has high energy efficiency. However, in the EHP type air conditioner, there is a problem in that an outdoor heat exchanger is covered with frost when low temperature warming is performed.
A conventional GHP type air conditioner is also disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 10-2003-0077857. As the conventional GHP type air conditioner uses waste heat of the engine, it has excellent defrosting performance, but there is a problem in that it has low engine efficiency due to heat loss, for example. Therefore, measures capable of providing an air conditioner having further improved performance and efficiency are required.